"The air near a lightning strike is heated to 50,000 degrees F hotter than the surface of the sun!"

28,000 K

Weather and Climate. Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life, 1992.

"Striking 1000 times a second somewhere on the planet and packing temperatures up to 50,000 °F"

28,000 K

Lightning is a natural, short-lived, high current electrical discharge in the
atmosphere. The path length of the discharge is normally several kilometers. The
cumulonimbus clouds of thunderstorms are the most common producers of lightning,
but it is also produced by cumulus, stratus, and other kinds of clouds, including
snowstorms, sandstorms, and clouds over erupting volcanoes. Lightning can also
occur in clean air within a few kilometers of a thunderstorm. More than half of
all discharges occur within a cloud. The rest generally takes place between clouds
and the ground, with occasional cloud-to-cloud or cloud-to-air discharges. A rare
discharge called an up flash, between large storms and the clear air above, may
be caused by electrons cascading down from the ionosphere.

At any one time about 2,000 thunderstorms may exist worldwide, producing lighting
flashing at a total rate of 100 per second. In an average year, about 100 to 200
persons are killed and several hundred injured by lightning in the United States
alone, a death rate exceeding deaths cause by hurricanes and tornadoes. These
deaths were due to the exceedingly high temperature of the lightning bolt, approximately
30,000 K.

"Sound is generated along the length of the lightning channel as the atmosphere is heated by the electrical discharge to the order of 20,000 degrees C (3 times the temperature of the surface of the sun)."